Tuesday 26 May 2009
Find me some academics!
I'm reading Stephen Mulhall's The Wounded Animal: J.M. Coetzee and the Difficulty of Reality in Literature and Philosophy which is very fine indeed. It has got me to thinking, again, about who are the other interesting academics writing about literature today (I'm thinking about those academics who manage to retain their rigour, but speak beyond the academy, if only to a quite self-selecting and small audience). As Steve said, when he mentioned Mulhall the other day, it isn't Jonathan Gottschall!
The work of Gabriel Josipovici, Frank Kermode, George Steiner, Terry Eagleton, Paul West, A.D. Nuttall (to mention just a few critics, off the top of my head, who are important to me) will always be challenging and relevant, but I'm thinking about newer kids on the block: Franco Moretti, Nancy Armstrong, Derek Attridge, Sharon Cameron, Asja Szafraniec and the Nietzsche scholar Jill Marsden are all helping to help me think about literature afresh -- who is doing it for you!?
Posted by Mark Thwaite
Tags: authors, literary criticism
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